Colin Macmillan Turnbull was a British-American anthropologist who came to public attention with the popular books The Forest People and The Mountain People, and one of the first anthropologists to work in the field of ethnomusicology.
Mbuti (Bambuti) mythology is the mythology of the African Mbuti Pygmies of Congo.
In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature for populations in which adult men are on average less than 150 cm tall.
The Aruwimi River is a tributary of the Congo River, located to the north and east of the Congo.
The Aka or Biaka are a nomadic Mbenga pygmy people. They live in south-western Central African Republic and in northern Republic of the Congo. They are related to the Baka people of Cameroon, Gabon, northern Congo, and southwestern Central African Republic.
The Ituri Rainforest is a rainforest located in the Ituri Province of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The forest's name derives from the nearby Ituri River which flows through the rainforest, connecting firstly to the Aruwimi River and finally into the Congo.
The Baka people, known in the Congo as Bayaka, are an ethnic group inhabiting the southeastern rain forests of Cameroon, northern Republic of the Congo, northern Gabon, and southwestern Central African Republic. They are sometimes called a subgroup of the Twa, but the two peoples are not closely related. Likewise, the name "Baka" is sometimes mistakenly applied to other peoples of the area who, like the Baka and Twa, have been historically called pygmies, a term that is now considered derogatory.
The Efé are a group of part-time hunter-gatherer people living in the Ituri Rainforest of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the depths of the forest they do not wear much clothing, using only leaf huts as shelter for their bodies in the intense heat. The Efé are Pygmies, and one of the shortest peoples in the world. The men grow to an average height of 142 cm, and women tend to be about 5 cm shorter.
Lese is a Central Sudanic language of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as a name for the people who speak this language. The Lese people, live in association with the Efé Pygmies and share their language, which is occasionally known as Lissi or Efe.
Baka music is the music of the Baka people who come from the southwestern Central African Republic. Most Baka music is vocal and it is polyphonic. The music is based on repetitive melody and rhythm, with little variations and a lot of improvisation. Music and dance is important to them. It is done to prepare for a hunt or show a skill. Music is also used in daily life for healing rituals, initiation rituals,traditional stories, group names, and for entertainment. Dance and music helps bring groups together. This helps people to become friends while they share their surviving techniques.
Bila, or Forest Bira, is a Bantu language spoken in the Mambasa Territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is also spoken by the Mbuti Pygmies who live in that area. Pygmy groups to the west include the Kango and Sua (Batchua). Other Mbuti speak Central Sudanic languages. The Kango and Sua speak distinct dialects, but not enough to impair mutual intelligibility with their farming Bila patrons.
The Kango (Bakango), also known as the Batchua and Mbuti-Sua, are an Mbuti pygmy people of the Ituri forest. They speak a Bantu language, Bila, apparently in two dialects, northern Sua and southern Kango.
The Asua or Asoa, also known as the Aka, are an Mbuti pygmy people of the Ituri forest. They speak a Central Sudanic language, Asuati, and are the only Pygmy group in the east to have their own language, though it is closely related to Mangbetu.
The term Congo Pygmies refers to "forest people" who have, or recently had, a hunter-gatherer economy and a simple, non-hierarchical societal structure based on bands, are of short stature, have a deep cultural and religious affinity with the Congo forest and live in a generally subservient relationship with agricultural "patrons", with which they trade forest products such as meat and honey for agricultural and iron products.
The Twa are a group of indigenous Central African foragers tribes. These cultural groups were formerly called Pygmies by European writers, but the term is no longer preferred based on its cultural and geographic inaccuracy, as well as being seen as pejorative. Cultural groups are being reclassified by themselves based on their function in society, lineage, and land ties.
The Great Lakes Twa, also known as Batwa, Abatwa or Ge-Sera, are a Bantu speaking group native to the African Great Lakes region on the border of Central and East Africa. As an indigenous pygmy people, the Twa are generally assumed to be the oldest surviving population of the Great Lakes region. Current populations of Great Lakes Twa people live in the states of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2000 they numbered approximately 80,000 people, making them a significant minority group in these countries. The largest population of Twa is located in Burundi estimated in 2008 at 78,071 people.
The Mangbetu–Asoa or Mangbetu languages of the Central Sudanic language family are a cluster of closely related languages spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Bantu peoples are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct native African ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. The languages are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa.
The African Pygmies are a group of ethnicities native to Central Africa, mostly the Congo Basin, traditionally subsisting on a forager and hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They are divided into three roughly geographic groups:
The Batwa–Luba clashes were a series of clashes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between the Pygmy Batwa people, and the Luba people that began in 2013 and ended in 2018.
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